


In a May Day, I Almost Lost You

by sunsetrose20



Series: In a May Day [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Infidelity, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mpreg, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Loki (Marvel), Photographs, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27760243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetrose20/pseuds/sunsetrose20
Summary: Loki can't quite remember how they ended up here, much less how they managed to ruin everything ever so spectacularly. The only thing that is clear is that he's sitting in the living room during a rainy day, surrounded by captured moments of happier times, and his child is pleading for his father to stay.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Series: In a May Day [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2030707
Comments: 7
Kudos: 56





	In a May Day, I Almost Lost You

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'll start by saying that I'm sleep deprived and admitting that I'm quite sure the quality of this work is questionable. 
> 
> Thoughts, ideas, comments, and constructive criticism are always welcome.

Loki stared out the window of their still shared apartment, chin propped on his palm and elbow digging into the armrest. His bloodshot eyes burnt with both the tears that welled up in his eyes and those he had shed since Thor announced there was nothing of their marriage left to salvage. The downpour beating against their window was the only indication that Thor felt something akin to what now consumed Loki.

“Please, Daddy,” their son pleaded, tugging on Thor’s sleeve until Thor knelt before him and stroked his cheeks to wipe away his tears. “Please don’t leave.”

“I’’m sorry,” Thor muttered and kissed  Magni’s forehead. “I’m sorry, Magni, but your mother and I need a little distance from each other, alright? Just for a little.”

Loki scoffed. “A little distance”? As in “we are taking a break”? By the Norns, they were divorcing each other! Thor was walking out that door, and he was not coming back. Loki knew it since he overheard Thor talking to Stark on the phone, asking for information on how divorces worked on Midgard. They had been attending couple counselling by that point, trying to work through their mutual infidelities, but it was clearly not enough. And, gods, Loki should have seen it coming since he left their bed to sleep with Magni because he could not stand to be in Thor’s presence. And yet, when Loki demanded to know why Thor was making such inquiries about divorces and Thor told him, “Loki, I don’t this is working,” Loki hadn’t known what to say or how to react.

Thor sent Loki a reproachful look at his scoff, for Magni threw himself at his father, burying his face in Thor’s chest and sobbing freely. Guilt surged inside Loki, but he didn’t move from his chair. Not even when Magni asked, “Why do you have to leave?”

“Because…” Thor began but didn’t finish. He glanced at Loki, but Loki sniffled and hid his eyes from sight.

_ Because your father has another family, _ Loki craved to say, but of course he could never tell their child such a thing. And, as far as he and Thor could tell, the woman had aborted the child.  _ Because your father cheated on me like I cheated on him _ was also fair game. After all, Thor’s infidelity had prompted their downhill journey, but Loki’s threw them over the edge after his lover called their residence—being unable to contact Loki’s phone—to inform Loki he better get rid of the child, or it was over, as if Loki would ever pick him over his family. Thor, who had answered, had slammed the phone on the bedside table and looked at Loki lying next to him in bed with a fury Loki hadn’t seen in his brother’s blue gaze since they argued over their mother’s death in Svartálfheimr. Suddenly, Thor had claimed, Loki’s limited rage at his bastard child made perfect sense. Loki was shameless, but not enough to reproach Thor the same mistake he had committed.

A “mistake.” That was what Loki had called Thor’s child and what Thor had called Loki’s. Magni, sobbing and screaming behind Loki’s legs, had only pleaded for them to stop shouting.

The next day, Thor spoke with Stark, and the day after that, Loki didn't doubt Thor was leaving them. All those steps they had taken—talking with a couple therapist, Loki returning to their bed, Thor tracking down the woman he’d been sleeping with to assure Loki no child had been produced—were for naught.

“Mommy,” Magni called from Thor’s arms. Loki uncovered his face with a sniffle, furiously wiping his tears with his sleeves. “Tell Daddy to stay.”

“Darling, I can’t.” Magni’s lower lip trembled, and Loki never abhorred himself as he did in that moment. “You’ll see Daddy every two weeks. He won’t go away forever.”

“No!” Magni shouted and buried his face in the crook of Thor’s neck. “You can’t leave!”

Thor shushed him, rocking him gently. “We’ll see each other on the weekends, remember? We’ll watch movies, and eat ice cream, and do whatever you want. Alright?”

Magni shook his head vehemently, crying louder. Whatever he said next came out as an unintelligible babble. 

Loki cupped the underside of his belly and grasped the armrest of the chair in his struggle to rise to his feet. He waddled to his son and soon-to-be ex-husband. Thor extended a hand to Loki to help him lower himself to the floor, and Loki took it. He was in no position to be prideful, and, truth was, he didn’t want Thor to leave on bad terms. In fact, Thor had agreed to leave after Loki delivered the child, but, well, Thor also picked up the phone the second and third time Loki’s past lover called to ask Loki to abort the babe or drop it somewhere, and things had escalated quickly those times too. Thor had let himself be convinced that the babe wasn’t his despite how many times Loki assured him the man had only taken him up the ass. But, Thor had countered, could Loki assure him he’d been sober during each and every one of his trysts? And that did make Loki doubt the paternity of the child, even though briefly, because he had to admit he’d been intoxicated on multiple occasions and the man had a strange fascination with his cunt. One never knew.

Magni snuggled between them, and Thor, without thinking as was his wont, placed a hand on Loki’s swollen belly, rubbing softly. Loki covered Thor’s hand with one of his own and pressed it firmer against the distended skin, hoping against all hopes that feeling the baby move, like that could ever win over Magni's cries, would make Thor see that they could fix this.

Loki sobbed when it didn’t. When Thor’s face twisted with the disgust of feeling the spawn of another man squirm inside his spouse’s womb, with the sorrow that only reflected Loki’s own. Neither of them had wanted it to end like this. Of course they hadn’t. Loki, for once, despite all he had done in recent years, didn’t know life without Thor. His brother couldn’t remember a single day of his life before Loki was brought to Asgard as a babe either. That was the true downside of their relationship—their curse. They weren’t losing only a husband, but a brother, someone who had been beside them since time immemorial. Loki was not above admitting that he wasn’t mourning the absence of Magni’s father, but the loss of his brother, his only family to have survived the destruction of their ancient home. It wouldn't be quite so simple, if at all possible, to return to their old dance, especially not now that they had a child, someone completely dependent on them, someone suffering for their choices, someone who had brought them together as the family they had dreamt of as youths. The family they had both worked to break apart. For years, really. 

Had this been a time before Magni’s birth—before Ragnarök—it wouldn’t be considered an infidelity by either Loki or Thor. Before they were forced to take refuge on the  _ Statesman _ , an open relationship had been their norm for centuries, though not necessarily because Loki had wished it so. But when Loki fell pregnant shortly after the Snap, Thor had proposed on the spot. In spite of his dislike of such a spontaneous, simple proposal, Loki had accepted, and afterwards it was an implicit rule that neither were to sleep with someone else.

It was the fault of neither, they had agreed precisely in order to salvage their brotherhood if not their marriage. The possibility of reversing the Snap and the finding of the  _ Statesman _ ’s escape pods had been taking a toll on them. Both were preoccupied with Loki’s precarious freedom and their people’s uncertain future on Midgard; both were too tired to return the other’s affection by the end of the day, and they had begun to drift apart. Thor turned to the mellow embrace of a woman—“A woman!” Loki had shouted in disbelief, throwing his arms in the air, because was his dual body not enough for Thor?—and Loki to the rough handling of a man he met at a bar. Perhaps it would have worked out once they became bored of their mortal lovers and returned to each other without a word as was their wont. However, Thor’s woman had the gall of finding the address of their home and knocking on their door to shove a positive pregnancy test on Loki’s face. Smugly, she had prattled on about her dalliance with a god as Loki looked at her down his nose, chin held up high. Magni had come to the door to ask why Loki was taking so long to return to their construction game, and the woman had frozen at the sight of Thor’s son. With his golden hair and electric blue eyes, but with traces of Loki’s angular features, the child was undoubtedly theirs. As if she could have accused Loki of not being the mother, the unmistakable roundness of his belly would have debunked her theory.

She had left without a fuss, and although Loki had made no comments about her little visit to Thor, he had left their marital bed. A week later—presumably the time it took Thor to discover what his lover had done—Thor had confessed. The abortion, however, that Loki hadn’t seen coming. Somehow, knowing Thor had been sleeping with a woman hurt him like it had never hurt him before, and he had sent a quick text to his lover to let him know it was over. He couldn't do that anymore.

“It’s because of that pregnancy, isn't it?” the man had replied. Loki had blocked him, and the first phone call home had followed soon after.

Magni hiccuped, one hand tightly bunched in Thor’s shirt and the other in Loki’s tunic. The thing about their son was that no-one but the Avengers knew of his existence. He had been spending most of his time alone, because the thing about Magni was that, as Loki’s second pregnancy progressed, he had been shoved aside in favour of their own problems. 

Loki's heart clenched. When was the last time he read Magni a bedtime story or played with his child? When was the last time they held a family dinner or a movie night? What, exactly, had been their breaking point? Why was Thor leaving them if he had no children but Magni? Why was Loki accepting this when he knew both his children were Thor’s? With that in mind, Loki truly wasn’t above pleading. Plus, Magni did give him an order. 

Loki placed a hand on Thor's shoulder, gaze open and earnest for once as more tears threatened to spill down his cheeks. “Please, Brother.  _ Please _ think about this.”

Thor sighed and cradled Magni’s head against his chest. “Loki, not in front-”

“Stay until the birth like we agreed. Have the child tested if you don’t trust my seiðr.” Thor’s shoulders slumped, both at Loki’s honest plea and Magni’s watery gaze. Taking advantage of Thor’s silence, Loki added, “If you truly wished to leave us, you would have done so already.”

“Stay, Daddy,” Magni repeated, over and over.

Thor glanced at the bags waiting for him beside the door and at the family photos littering the living room walls. Most of their pictures were kept in an album in Thor’s bedside table, which Loki had been pleasantly surprised—as much as one could be in his position—to find Thor was taking with him. Photography and cooking were Thor’s chosen hobbies since Stark gifted them the apartment. Loki had leaned more towards taking care of their lively son and knitting, because weaving hadn’t come naturally to him, in remembrance of his mother.

The first photo Thor had decided to frame was not taken by him but by Lady Pepper. It was from their wedding, a small affair with only Thor's friends as guests, but Loki found he enjoyed it much more than he would have enjoyed the standard, lavish ceremony of someone of his station. Or previous station, considering the only “Asgardians” on Earth were Thor, Magni, and him. For now, anyway. In the photo, Thor was wearing a dark blue suit whilst Loki, having decided to ignore the thinly veiled jibe, had been cajoled into wearing a white one. The only sign of Magni was Thor’s hand firmly pressed against the gentle swell of Loki’s belly as they shared a kiss.

In their second oldest photo, Thor had an arm extended to take a picture of himself with his other arm around Loki’s waist as they sat on the carpet of Magni’s nursery, unpacking the baby clothes Thor’s friends had gifted them. Loki’s expression was exasperated, but Thor knew it was truly fondness. That was why he loved that picture so much. By the next, Loki was well on his way in planning Thor’s murder, the effect of his glare lessened by the utter exhaustion clouding his face after a long and difficult birth. All that could be seen of Magni was a pink, chubby arm sticking out from the bundle of yellow blankets in Loki’s arms. For some reason, Thor loved that one too; for obvious reasons, Loki despised it.

There were pictures of Magni on his tummy on a blanket Loki had knitted for him; of Magni on his feeding chair with a fistful of spaghetti raised high in the air, his clothes and face dirty with sausage; and of Magni taking his first stumbling steps towards Loki. There were photos of Magni sleeping on Thor’s chest, of Magni sitting on a swing seat, and of Magni hugging Morgan on the day of their first sleepover. There were pictures of social gatherings too, of course. Of the children sitting in the midst of torn wrapping paper on their first shared Christmas morning and of the Avengers gathered around a table as Magni blew the candles on his birthday cake.

Loki sniffled and looked at Thor’s tear-stained face. Loki’s cheeks were swollen, and, truthfully, it hurted to keep his eyes open, but he continued to blink at his brother. Norns, why couldn’t he have thought of all this when he spread his legs for someone other than Thor? Why couldn’t  _ Thor _ have thought of this when he got that woman pregnant, or when he chose to argue with Loki’s lover over his insulted manhood instead of ending the call?

Magni's wavering voice broke through the silence.

“Are you staying, Daddy?” When Thor failed to reply, Magni turned his blotchy face on Loki. “Is he staying, Mommy?”

Loki kissed Magni’s temple and pulled him out of Thor’s lap, just in case Thor was still fixed on this madness. It wouldn’t make it easier for either party if Magni continued to cling to Thor. Unfortunately, that maneuver seemed to give Magni his answer, for his crying started anew, though this time he took refuge in his mother’s embrace.

“Leave before it gets worse,” Loki suggested and buried his face in Magni’s hair, his nose too congested to detect the odour radiating from his son, but he could guess from the grease shining on his hair. When was the last time Magni showered? Or Loki, for that matter?

“I can’t leave him like this, Loki,” Thor protested. Loki scoffed, preparing to retort that it would only hurt Magni more if they waited for Magni to fall asleep and he woke up to find Thor gone, but Thor interrupted with a shushing hand. “I can’t leave  _ you _ like this either.”

Irritation prickled Loki’s skin. Sadly, his eyes burnt too much to roll them. “I’m not an invalid, Thor.”

A feeble smile tugged at the corners of Thor’s mouth at the old argument as he brushed his fingertips over Loki’s bump.

Loki winced, spine stiffening as an electric jolt ran through his body. He groaned when the next one was accompanied with a well-aimed kick to his ribs, eyes fluttering close. When he opened them, Thor was gaping at him and a tiny hand had joined Thor’s as Magni contemplated his belly with wonder.

Brilliant. Not only did Thor continue to doubt him, but now, as it turned out, Loki would have to take care of two mini Thors by himself. 

This was simply brilliant. 

“Oh, don’t be so surprised, Thor,” Loki snapped, anger stirring within him. “Magni used to do this very same thing.”

“I did?”

Before Loki could reply, “Of course you did,” he was smothered against Thor’s chest. Thor rocked them and babbled apologies broken by sobs into Loki’s hair for having doubted him. He mumbled fevered words of love and reassurance as he promised they would return to couple counselling. Loki replied with a whispered chant of “yes, yes, yes” because, although they would be brooding again by noon tomorrow, with their son squished between them, his cries morphing into ones of relief, it was worth it. They had suffered worse, and it would take countless therapy sessions to overcome this completely—mutual trust issues and whatnot—but they were resilient. Magni would keep his father, and Loki would keep both his husband and brother, for only the Norns would have the power to help Thor if he ever thought of leaving them again. 

Loki already had a clear punishment in mind. 

**Author's Note:**

> Anyways, this, meaning the story, has something to do with photographs; I can remember that much. Feel free to skip what I'm about to say. 
> 
> I had this peculiar experience in which my grandmother asked me why I didn't like her pictures on Instagram. I replied that I rarely use social media platforms, which is true, but she still made that distrustful, little _hmm_. You know the one I'm talking about? In any case, I only go on social media like once a month, or even once every three months, and I really only do that when I'm in a shitty mood and want to feel even shittier about my life. 
> 
> I mostly stopped using social media because I liked to post pictures of my dogs, but family members were always like, "Post pictures of yourself! We don't want to see your dogs!" (I also don't trust myself not to try to make me feel shitty).
> 
> And the thing here is: I detest seeing pictures of myself. I don't know how to explain it since I understand that taking selfies and so on is one of the most normal things. But, in my case, it somehow isn't. Snapping a picture for me is like taking a moment of my life away, one to which I can never return, for now there is a "before" and an "after." And since we can only move forward, I can never again be the person I was _before_. It's weird. Plus, logically, I know that's my face, but it doesn't feel like it is? And I'm like, Eww.
> 
> I have no idea how exactly my issue with pictures of myself is related to the story, but it is what it is, right? I just know it somehow was the inspiration. 
> 
> Well, sorry for ranting! I think I needed to get that off my chest. Thanks a lot if you made it through that!
> 
> I feel like I may write a prequel. Yeah, that seems plausible...


End file.
